Legend LXXXIX – The River-Guardian Without a Call

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On the ancient maps, drawn before the time of fixed borders, a mark was noted at the edges of the mountains. Later dismissed as weathering, it actually designated a guardian whose name was never to be spoken aloud. He was called, if anything, the River-Guardian Without a Call, for he belonged neither to the mountains nor to the water, but to the long passage between them, where rivers are born and yet do not know where they will flow. His body was large and powerful, covered in scale-like feathers that resembled layered bark, earthy brown and golden, as if the wind had deposited dust from bygone ages within him. His head resembled that of a griffin, but his eyes were older than any predator, steady, watchful, without hunger, and along his neck grew rigid, flame-colored crests that glowed in the mist like frozen embers. Behind him wound a long, scaly tail, red as glowing ore, and when it moved, even the rock seemed to pause to make way for it. The River-Guardian lived on high ledges above the valleys, where waterfalls plunged into the depths like white threads and the mist never quite lifted. His task was not to rule, but to remember: he preserved the course of the rivers. As long as he watched, no stream strayed, no water turned against its source, no valley withered from oblivion. But people began to name rivers, to divert them, to divide them, giving them numbers and rights, and with each new dam, the River-Guardian lost a part of his connection to the world. His name vanished first from the songs, then from the warnings of the old, finally from the thoughts of those who settled on the banks. He remained, but no one called upon him anymore. Without a call, he grew heavier, more immobile, and stood motionless on his rock for days and nights on end, his gaze fixed on the valley, as if listening to a voice that no longer came. Wanderers sometimes glimpsed him in the mist, mistaking him for a statue or a figment of the weather, and as they continued on their way, the river's course changed imperceptibly, a small bend here, a new branch there, as if the water itself were searching for guidance. On nights when thunderstorms loomed over the mountains, the river-guardian spread his wings halfway, not to fly, but to break the wind, lest the torrents of rain sweep everything away. He uttered no cry, no thunder, only a deep, barely audible rumble that was lost in the rock. It is said that he knew every valley, every stone in the riverbed, and that his memory was as old as the water itself. When the maps were finally redrawn and the old lines disappeared, the River Guardian began to fade, not in physical form, but in the weight of his task. The rivers became more restless, flooding places they had never known or drying up in places that had once been fertile.